At last year's Labour party conference, Tony Blair said that Labour were the "change-makers". He is right. Since 1997 the government has introduced 11 education bills. Ministers have unleashed a blizzard of initiatives. A torrent of extra money has flowed from Whitehall, with state education absorbing 5.5% of GDP today compared with 4.7% in 1997.

Yet our education system still fails to equip school leavers with basic skills. At GCSE level, only 52% of pupils in maths and 57% in English get a C grade or better; the National Audit Office says that 13% of the school population is in poorly performing schools; and Ofsted reports that a tenth of our schools are inadequate.

This is intolerable. Poor standards of achievement have to be addressed, but wholesale change is not always the answer. Change should be proportionate and in response to specific weaknesses.

There have been improvements in the key stage test results and in GCSE results in recent years. However, higher standards of teaching and improved learning are harder to achieve in a context of permanent revolution. The national curriculum has been overhauled twice since 1997. The traditional A-level system was blown apart by the curriculum 2000 reforms.

The vocational curriculum has borne the brunt of the desire for continuous change. With the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority planning to slash the number of vocational qualifications and create a credit-based system of learning, no let-up is in sight.

Stability is needed for improved teaching and learning to take place; stability is needed to give vocational qualifications greater currency in the marketplace; yet stability is as foreign to some ministers as discreet behaviour is to George Galloway.

Ministers have also initiated major organisational changes in the education and training sector. Institutional change can bring benefits; it can also be disruptive, costly and distracting. Referring to changes in the health service, the House of Commons health select committee recently noted that it takes an average of 18 months for organisations to recover after restructuring.

Improving standards of achievement in education must remain a priority for ministers. Education is crucial to individual life chances. Also, until the education system ensures that a greater proportion of pupils leave compulsory education with a good grounding in basic skills and qualifications to at least level 2, too much of post-16 education and training will inevitably be remedial in nature.

Until we increase the proportion of the UK workforce qualified to levels 2 and 3, skills shortages will also persist. A recent survey of a representative sample of 500 IoD members revealed that 48% had been affected by skills shortages over the past year. Middle managerial, associate professional (eg nurse, teacher, computer programmer) and sales positions were the most difficult to fill. The same survey found that 62% felt that some of their employees were not fully proficient at their jobs.

Directors can ameliorate skill shortages and gaps through imaginative recruitment practices and investing in skills and training. Many are already doing so. But the difficulties confronting employers, teachers and learners in improving standards are exacerbated by repeated changes in the qualifications system and institutional upheaval. Let change be incremental, proportionate and driven by genuine need. Change for change's sake is not good policy.

· Richard Wilson is head of business policy at the Institute of Directors